Ehsan Ismael, a senior three student at Emma High School, Kikaaya held up a tiny blue and red robot at an excited school assembly, as it whirred to life.
Barely the size of a school lunchbox, the solar panel cleaner moved with precise, calculated motions, guided by two motors, sensors and code made by the O’level students. Her counterparts in senior four; Kevin Moni, and Twesigye Faith also showcased an automated trash picker that moved with similar precision.
The two innovations won the school a second-place finish at the highly competitive World Robot Olympiad National Championship, held at Innovation Village, Kampala under the theme: “Earth.”
“It took us 3 weeks to learn everything and to prepare for the championship,” Ismael revealed, explaining that they were taught Pictoblox, a block-based programming platform designed for beginners to learn coding, artificial intelligence (AI), and robotics in a fun and interactive way.
These innovations are part of Uganda’s newly introduced lower secondary (O-Level) curriculum. Started in February 2020, the new curriculum focuses on skills development rather than rote memorization. Continuous assessment on projects now contributes 20% of the final national examination score.
“The new curriculum for O’level has been instrumental in skilling. Academic programs end at 2-3pm and then the students have these skilling programs. These are skills that can get them employed. We want out students to continue and get university degrees but to also have extra skills,” Eng. Emmanuel Tumuheirwe, the school director said.
In 2024, a total of 379,620 candidates registered to sit for the Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) O-Level examinations. Of these, 369,477 candidates where under the New Lower Secondary Curriculum (NLSC) and 10,143 candidates for the transitional UCE examinations.
The Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB) Executive Director Daniel Odongo said that the new curriculum is more holistic and it takes cognizance of the need to examine all that the student can do with their hands, what they can remember and their attitudes inline with global practice.
Tumuheirwe urged government, through the Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) to consider rolling out a countrywide skilling program alongside the academic program and in so doing to bring down the costs of skilling programs.
“Skilling programs are very expensive. Getting the materials to use is very expensive. The plan now is to see whether the ministry of education can introduce this into more schools and get us donors to build workshops to ease the burden on the parents,” he explained.
The global educational robot market was valued at approximately $1.37 billion in 2024 and to grow to $5 billion by 2030 according to Grandviewresearch.com.
“Skilling does not take the students away from the academics; we had students with several As and Bs in 2024. However, when students are weak in the academics, the skilling helps,” Herman Mukiibi, the Emma High School head teacher said.
